Editorial: Improving quality of life

Modern American medicine: it seems that everyone has some horror story of infections, forever waits, mix-ups, indifference.

Modern American miracles: the stories keep coming, in spite of the infuriating examples listed above: people saved from the brink of death, benefiting from modern treatments, going home in a few days from heart surgery.

This is not your grandfather’s medicine. Americans are blessed with the benefit of medical professionals who receive and apply the latest training. Diagnostics are precise, surgeries are less invasive, hospital stays are shorter, people are living longer.

And on the home scene: Middle Peninsula residents have, for nearly 35 years now, reaped the rewards of having a hospital in their home town. The newer generations cannot remember not having a hospital. Older residents do remember: long hospitalizations in a city, long drives for an appointment with a specialist, long desperate hauls in an ambulance after a life-threatening event.

In short, both time and lives are saved by the presence of Riverside Walter Reed Hospital. It’s a solid and growing presence in our community. It has attracted a multitude of medical professionals to the county. A cancer treatment center joined the campus several years ago. Now a new ICU and a family care center are under construction.

The hospital grows from strength to strength. We congratulate it on the latest groundbreaking, which marks yet another step to improve the way it cares for its own community, and improves the community’s quality of life.